Tag Archives: hadon of ancient opar

In November 2016, Éditions Mnémos will be publishing Opar, Intégrale, a French-language omnibus encompassing Hadon of Ancient Opar, Flight to Opar, and The Song of Kwasin. This is the first French collection of the original Khokarsa/Ancient Opar trilogy, and also marks the first translation into French of The Song of Kwasin, which I coauthored with Philip Jose Farmer. I don’t yet know who the cover artist is but I love the artwork!*

* Update: According to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, the cover artist is Grant Regan and the translator of The Song of Kwasin (Le Geste de Kwasin) is Laura Dupra. The translator of Hadon of Ancient Opar (Hadon, fils de l’antique Opar) and Flight to Opar (Fuite à Opar) is George H. Gallet.

Farmer was the banquet speaker at the Burroughs convention. He was introduced by Burroughs Bulletin founding editor (and close friend of Phil and his wife Bette) Vern Coriell, who remarked during his introduction that the only reason Phil hadn’t won a Hugo Award that year is because they didn’t have a category for “Biography.” The previous year, Doubleday had published Phil’s Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke.

As a prelude to this announcement, Farmer discusses Tarzan Alive and his anthology on feral humans, Mother Was a Lovely Beast. The Ancient Opar announcement is at the 10:12 mark.

You can hear Phil pronouncing the name “Hadon,” the hero of Hadon of Ancient Opar and Flight to Opar. Just as he indicated in his article “The Khokarsan Language” (available in the Restored Edition of Flight to Opar published by Meteor House in 2015), he pronounces the “a” as “a low central spread vowel (as in Spanish)” and the “o” as “a mid-back rounded vowel (as in Spanish).” On other words: “Hä-dōn.”

Phil announces that Richard Corben would illustrate the cover of the first edition of Hadon of Ancient Opar. However, plans must have changed along the way, since Roy G. Krenkel ended up as the final cover artist. Corben later went on to illustrate the 1975 Fokker D-LXIX Press edition of A Feast Unknown.

Phil mentions that he envisioned the Ancient Opar series would encompass about ten books. He lived to write only three novels in the series (Hadon of Ancient Opar, Flight to Opar, and The Song of Kwasin), but the tale of Khokarsa continues to unfold in books such as Exiles of Kho, Hadon, King of Opar, and the forthcoming Blood of Ancient Opar.

Phil mentions Frank Brueckel and John Harwood’s essay on the history of Opar, which inspired his Ancient Opar series. While the lengthy article was then scheduled to appear in the Burroughs Bulletin, it never did. Many years later, however, the monograph was finally published in the book Heritage of the Flaming God, ed. Alan Hanson and Michael Winger, which is available here.

The “Ian” whom Phil calls out to in the audience in regard to the publication of John Flint Roy’s A Guide to Barsoom is publisher Ian Ballantine.